The Renku Sessions: New Calendar 28

Welcome to The Haiku Foundation’s Fifth Renku Session: New Calendar. I am John Stevenson, leading my second Kasen (36 verse) renku on this site. We will be trying something a little different this time. Instead of making all of the selections myself, new verses will be selected by the poet who wrote the preceding verse. This will be on a voluntary basis and I remain ready to preform this task for anyone who prefers to pass up the opportunity.

Since Marietta McGregor respectfully declined the opportunity to select our twenty-eighth verse, it has become my turn, once again.

Many of our selectors have commented on the difficulty of choosing among so many offers. My final choice, this time, came down to two verses. Each represents very strongly held values for me and the final choice was truly wrenching.

I have previously commented on the social aspect of renku. It’s a party and I strongly believe in “the more the merrier.” There were some tempting verses submitted this time by poets who have not yet been included. And there was one, in particular, that remained my first choice right up to the last minute. I was conscious, however, that I would have to prominently discuss its renku-related shortcomings in order to fulfill the educational requirements of this feature. And I concluded, reluctantly, that to do so would be a disservice to the social values of renku; at least as I perceive those values. I do want to encourage poets who have not had a verse selected to keep playing, knowing that I am eager to see your verses in the finished renku and I hope other selectors will also consider this a priority.

Among the late submissions was one I like just as much as the verse I’ve mentioned above. It comes from a poet who has two verses previously selected:

all the agar plates
contaminated

–Polona Oblak

This verse has the kind of jolt that I am looking for in these final verses of the ha. The link by contrast between “purely” and “contaminated” is a broad stroke. But it also has subtlety. I think of the story of how penicillin was discovered through an accidental laboratory contamination. And I think this can be thought of as reflecting our collective experience in renku composition. Any “imperfections” in our experiment may still produce unexpectedly salutary results.

Thank you, Polona!

Polona Oblak will be offered the opportunity to select the next verse. Polona, please contact me, either in a reply below or by e-mail (ithacan@earthlink.net) to let me know whether you accept this offer. If you do, I will ask you to choose the next verse in accordance with the requirements listed below and to write a paragraph or two about your selection and send it to me on Wednesday morning (July 19, eastern US time) so that I can incorporate it in the next posting, which appears on the following day. If you would rather not make the selection, I will do so, but I would prefer to know that I’ll be doing that as early as possible

Verse twenty-nine will be an autumn moon verse, written in three lines. This will be the first in a series of three autumn verses. As was the case with previous moon verses, mention of the moon is, in itself, enough to establish the season as autumn. In order to avoid back linking to verse twenty-seven, this verse should feature a day moon.

Verse twenty-nine must link to the twenty-eighth verse (and only the twenty-eighth verse) but it also must clearly shiftaway from it in terms of scene, subject, and tone.

You will have until Tuesday night to make your offers. The Haiku Foundation site has been busy lately and the link to our renku session has not always been obvious on the home page. There is a permanent “Renku Sessions” button a little further down the home page and you can always reach the current session via this route. We will continue to check for new verse offers through each Tuesday.

…well, ‘back-lit’ was suggested by spellcheck. But I think it’s wrong. It should be ‘backlit’ according to both the Free Dictionary & Oxford Living Dictionaries. Anyway, maybe both are right but the hyphen will vanish, as it has over time in the cases of many words. 🙂
—
so dramatic
these cumulonimbi
backlit by the moon!
—
– Lorin

Just a little more information about moon verses – they are about the actual moon or its light. The word “moon” used to signify something other than the moon itself (or its light) will not satisfy the requirements for this verse.

all morning long
we make moon pies
by the dozen
.
.
**moon pies = a special treat made of graham crackers, marshmallow filling and coated with chocolate (enjoyed all over the USA, but especially in the southern states). They are round and about 3-4 inches in diameter.

Graham crackers are very common in the states. I’ve never made them, just bought them, but because of your question, I looked it up. They are a whole wheat cracker and usually there is some honey in the mixture. The texture is a bit like a digestive biscuit but they are much thinner. Here’s the link with an interesting history note as to why they are called “Graham” crackers: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/graham-crackers-recipe

technically a day moon this year:
“The closest full moon to the autumn equinox reaches the crest of its full phase on October 5 at 18:40 UTC. For us in the continental U.S., the moon turns precisely full during the daytime hours on Thursday, October 5. By U.S. clocks, that full moon instant comes at 2:40 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, 1:40 p.m. Central Daylight Time, 12:40 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time, 11:40 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time, 10:40 a.m. Alaskan Daylight Time and 8:40 a.m.Hawaiian Standard Time”

hmmm… i think you answered yourself, Betty… technically the exact time of the full moon occurs in daytime only for a part of the world (incidentally, the part you live in). in my time zone (central european summer time, GMT+2) it’s after dark. and in any case, the full moon is out between sunset and sunrise, so not visible in daytime, and this is true anywhere in the world.

can you help me out with this one, Carol?
do you mean the moon buggy as a real lunar vehicle or a type of a stroller (or something else entirely)? also, what made you put fairy tales in quotation marks?
in any case, the verse is intriguing… 🙂

I was referring to a stroller. I see so many children in these things and most have, not books but a sort of ebook, my aim was to present some sort of development of a child’s mind with the mention of fairy tales. Maybe reading about the man in the moon 🙂
I see John has given a clear indication of what is required. I downloaded the archive Renku last night to try and gain a better understanding of the requirements for this genre, beautiful work.
Thanks for you input, polona, your comments are making me think more, and giving me the encouragement to keep going. I’ll get there.

Hi Marietta, it is fun. I started the with the haiku in March and the amount of books I have read to date has certainly mounted up, thank goodness they are all on a Kindle 🙂
I’ve read your poems in the archive section, nice work.

thanks, Carol, this is a lovely haiku and would even make a great hokku for an autumn renku (that is, a renku begun in autumn) 🙂

however, what we are writing here are the internal verses of the renku. and in a renku only the first verse – the hokku – has the properties of haiku (i.e. a cut and a juxtaposition).
the internal verses are not cut and the juxtaposition happens between verses not within a given verse.

thanks, everyone, for your kind comments, they are appreciated.
–
looking back i think a slight edit of the selected verse would be welcome. something like:
.
every agar plate
contaminated
.
this wouldn’t change the meaning and would avoid another plural noun in a row.
to my knowledge such edits are normal in renku writing, either during or after the composition. i would prefer the edited version but as this renku is somewhat specific i’m fine either way.
**
.
we’re off to a good start and everyone is welcome to join in the fun. the more the merrier! 🙂
.
as Paul already mentioned, there is no need to bother about the link (unless you wish so) as the mention of the moon guarantees it automatically, so just make sure of sufficient shift.
.
i intend to make selections with a slight bias towards the authors who haven’t yet had a verse featured in this renku but if something knocks me off my feet i will select it regardless of the author 🙂

thanks for your vote of confidence, Marietta.
it may not be a major issue but i just read back and we have four plural nouns in a row: the regular cubes, nights and plates in the last three verses plus the irregular women .

it is, Betty, as much as japanese kigo are relevant to our writing.
then again, “cold” is a winter kigo and we have it in a summer verse
but yes, since we’re looking for an autumn moon we may want to avoid conflicting seasonal references

I remember being glued to the tv in our biology lab’s tea-room in between taking tutorials, but my recollections don’t run to the season, Polona! It may have been a winter (July for me) moon! Not autumn. I know it wasn’t summer, because I would have been on uni vacation and my mother and I didn’t own a tv set then! Oh well, another try! 🙂